


Trick and Treat

by Miss_Peletier



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/M, i guarantee it, shameless trick or treating fluff, this is sweeter than anything in your candy bowl
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-31
Updated: 2016-10-31
Packaged: 2018-08-28 03:53:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,799
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8430763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miss_Peletier/pseuds/Miss_Peletier
Summary: Abby Griffin finds herself overwhelmed, taking part in a long-standing Halloween tradition about which she knows next to nothing. Thankfully, Marcus Kane is there to help...in more ways than one.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Mallister](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Mallister).



> Happy Halloween, Saren! I hope you enjoy this shameless fluff. :')

Abby Griffin opened her front door, set a bowl of candy on the porch, and tried to forget everything that bowl represented. Or at least, the reason it was where it was.

Once upon a time it had been her job to stay at home and hand out candy, to experience all the glory of Halloween night from behind the painted door of their home and take guesses at various kids’ costumes (“You’re a…um…Power Ranger? Right?” “I’m a _Jedi_ , Mrs. Griffin.”). But since last year, since Jake’s passing, this was the first year she’d be taking Clarke out and leaving that bowl on their doorstep.

Truthfully, it was a bowl of mixed emotions. On one hand, Abby felt a rush of excitement at taking her fourth-grade daughter out to trick-or-treat. That had always been Jake’s job, just by nature of his volunteering to do it – he always wanted to dress up, to play good-natured pranks on the kids by jumping out from behind trees or in bushes while wearing his werewolf costume – and Abby had let him, perfectly content to mooch Butterfingers from inside the bowl on their counter. There was something enticing about taking part in the tradition after all these years she’d stood on the sidelines.

And it was so damn nice to have a night off from her shift at the hospital. The nights when she hadn’t handed out candy she’d been pumping stomachs of teenagers who’d had too much to drink, dealing with the aftermath of Halloween parties gone horribly wrong. It was a wonder, she thought, that she hadn’t been completely poisoned to the holiday after all she’d seen. But those experiences made for good stories, at least. Some of them.

And when she looked at Clarke, the sparkle in her eyes as she helped her into her glittery pink Sleeping Beauty costume, she was reminded the holiday was about more than parties and painful reminiscings.

She just wished it had come about in a different manner.

It seemed Clarke had, for the most part, come to terms with what happened. She was quiet now and then, she cried now and then, but with a fourth-grade girl Abby knew that was to be expected. After all, that was what it meant to be human: being quiet and crying from time to time just meant you loved someone, not that you couldn’t live your life in spite of their absence.

Sometimes she thought Clarke dealt better with it than she did.

“Mommy, do I look pretty?” Clarke asked, spinning around in a whirl of pink chiffon. “Do I look like a princess?”

Abby laughed, shoved down those pesky feelings of grief that threatened to sabotage her tear ducts. _Not now, Abby. Not in front of her._ “You look like the prettiest princess ever,” Abby told her with a warm smile, her heart swelling in her chest as Clarke beamed.

“I need help with my tiara,” she announced, holding her plastic crown out for her mom to place on her head. Abby could hardly blame her – at least in her (limited) experience, those things were damn near impossible to get on and even harder to get to stay put. It would be a miracle, she thought, if they made it through the night with that thing still on her head. But her daughter didn’t need to know that.

So instead of briefing her child on the unlikelihood of keeping her shimmery plastic crown for the entire evening, Abby took the tiara from her hands and slid it overtop her curly blonde locks. Clarke held still just long enough to feel the tiny combs on the end stick into her hair, then bounded off to look at herself in the mirror.

“It’s beautiful!” Abby heard her exclaim from two rooms over, where she was most likely standing on her tiptoes in front of the vanity bathroom mirror. She accentuated every syllable – _bee-you-tee-full_ – and before she could put a stop to it, clamp down on it, her lower lip began to tremble. Jake would’ve thought she was bee-you-tee-full, too. Jake could have picked her up and twirled her around. Jake would have let her wave her wand at him and cast spells on him just to see her smile.

Jake was so damn good at this, and Abby felt as though she were playing catch-up to the man she thought would be her partner for life. To the man whose ring now hung around her neck instead of nestled on his finger, to the man who still haunted her dreams as Callie nagged her to “get back out there and meet someone! You’re still hot as hell.”

She didn’t feel hot as hell. She might have been wearing a thick sweater, a scarf, and a wool coat, but she felt cold as ice.

“Come on, honey,” Abby prompted from the entryway, boots scraping against the braided rug beneath her feet as she commenced pulling her jacket out from the wooden hall closet. They had two hours at most of daylight left, and nighttime could be ruthless in terms of cold. In her thin little princess dress, Clarke wasn’t likely to last fifteen minutes after the sun went down. For $30, Abby would’ve thought the costume would offer a little more in terms of warmth.

Clarke came bounding down the hallway with all the eagerness of a puppy ready to go for a walk. Then she paused, composed herself briefly, and said: “Daddy bought me this.”

Abby froze with her hand on the doorknob. _What?_

“Honey, we bought you that costume a week ago. From Party City, remember? Daddy didn’t-“ she stopped, swallowed hard, felt the ring around her neck heavy like a lead weight. _Daddy isn’t here anymore. Daddy didn’t help us pick out that dress._

Oblivious to her mother’s sadness, Clarke let out a jingle-bell of a laugh. “I didn’t mean the dress, mommy. Daddy bought me the crown.”

 _Oh. Right._ Now that she thought about it, Jake had bought her that crown. A little over a year ago, when she’d first entered her princess phase, Jake had enabled her as any father firmly wrapped around his daughter’s little finger should. She still remembered how he’d pored over Amazon late at night, calling her over to the computer in the corner of their bedroom. _“Do you think she’d like this one best?” “Jake, honestly, I think she’d like any of them.” “But why is this one so much more expensive? Is it better than the others?” “That one’s more expensive because it’s being shipped from Hong Kong, baby.”_

“I remember that,” Abby answered, turning to her daughter with a wistful smile that she hoped conveyed fondness and not the soul-churning grief that welled inside her like a stormcloud ready to burst. “He was so happy to present you with it, Princess Clarke. Didn’t he say it would give you magical powers?”

Clarke grinned. “Yeah.”

They regarded each other for a moment, both smiling, frozen in the almost-blinding light of their memories. And then: “If it gave me magical powers, why can’t I bring daddy back?”

 _Shit._ And this was the thing she’d been trying to avoid, the thing she was hoping against all hope wouldn’t happen tonight. Clarke’s question was so sweet, so innocent, so blameless. The kind of thing a 9-year-old who didn’t fully understand where her father had gone would ask. But no waving of a magic wand would bring him back, no shimmering crown could reverse that drunken driver’s swerve into his vehicle as he drove back from the grocery store.

Clarke didn’t have to know that tonight. Not before trick-or-treating.

So instead of breaking the hardest news of all, Abby knelt down, shoving her coat out of the way and placing her hands on her daughter’s tiny shoulders. Here, at eye-level, she was the spitting image of her father: same blue eyes, same sandy blonde hair, same porcelain skin. He’d often said she got her beauty from him and her brains from her, which had led Abby to give him a good-natured smack in the chest on multiple occasions.

But now Abby agreed. She looked like her father, and she was beautiful.

“I don’t think it gave you those powers, honey,” Abby whispered, doing her best to talk over the lump in her throat. “But he’s watching over us. You remember what I told you?”

Clarke nodded. “He’s always with us.”

“Right,” Abby agreed, relieved that she didn’t need a refresher. Because right now it felt as though someone was taking her heart and squeezing it in a vise, and she couldn’t guarantee it wouldn’t break if she had to say those words. “And right now, he thinks you’re the prettiest princess in the whole wide world.”

 

***

 

“Watch out!” a voice yelled, and before Abby could do anything about it she felt something barreling into her with all the force of a semi-truck on the highway. She was knocked to the ground, cell phone in hand, all the wind knocked out of her as she collided with the unforgiving concrete.

 _Dammit,_ she thought with a pained groan. Her phone had been knocked from her grasp and careened across the street, not that it mattered over the stars she was currently seeing explode before her eyes. Clarke had walked up to the closest house and was in the process of picking out her newest sugar-laden fat bomb (Abby, being a doctor, didn’t have much use for candy), but Abby couldn’t help being thankful she hadn’t been around. A fall like this might have knocked her unconscious.

“Sorry!” she heard a tiny voice exclaim, as a weight around her legs disentangled itself. “I’m so, so, so sorry! Bellamy was chasing me and he was gonna take my Milky Way bar and I didn’t want him to have it and I didn’t look where I was going and-“

Well, she could hardly be angry at a kid. She wondered if anything like this had ever happened to Jake on his various Halloween ventures. Was there a sort of invisible list on which to check off various “classic” trick-or-treat experiences? _Tackled to the ground by a second-grader. Check._

“Are you all right?” another voice asked, this one noticeably older, deeper, and more masculine. And somehow recognizable, as if she’d heard it before but the memory fell just outside her grasp.

Then the owner of that voice materialized in her frame of vision, and she found herself wishing the fall had knocked her out completely instead of just partially.

She was greeted by a man dressed as a vampire, complete with the long satin cape and stick-on fangs. He was equally absurd and handsome, his hair slicked back and his eyes wide, as though he were afraid she’d need an ambulance immediately and he’d already begun dialing 9-1-1.

“I’m fine,” Abby grunted, pulling herself into a seated position and beginning to scan the surrounding area for her phone. She didn’t find it amongst the white picket fences and perfectly manicured lawns and barely managed to stifle a groan – of course she’d lose her phone.

“Are you sure?” Kane asked, extending a hand to help her up. “Octavia, say you’re sorry.”

“I just did!” the little girl, Octavia, exclaimed. Apparently one apology was all she’d receive from the little…what was that costume? Batgirl? She had that logo that Jake had told her was some superhero or another…

“She did,” Abby said, pushing herself into a standing position without the help of Kane’s hand. He withdrew it immediately, seemingly unfazed. “I don’t suppose you know where my phone went?”

Kane reached into his pocket and pulled out something with a blue Otter Box – her phone.

“It landed right at my feet,” he said with a tiny smile. “You had good aim when you fell.”

Abby couldn’t suppress a laugh. As awkward as the whole situation was, the ludicrousness was worth a chuckle. She combed her hair back into place with her fingers, dusted a few brown crunchy leaf fragments from the wool of her coat. “Thank you, Mr…”

“Kane. But you can call me Marcus.”

“Thank you, Marcus. I try.”

She took her phone from Marcus’s hand, placed it securely back in her pocket and buttoned the flap closed. No more texting Callie while miniature linebackers ran amok.

“You’re sure you shouldn’t be checked for a concussion?” Marcus insisted. His concern, while misplaced, was endearing.

“I’m a doctor, actually,” Abby said as Clarke materialized by her side. “I’d know if I had a concussion. But thank you for your concern.”

“Bellamy?” Clarke exclaimed, running around her to meet Marcus’s second…child, she guessed. “Hi!”

Bellamy Blake had been avoiding the whole scene, content to pretend to be Julius Ceasar and wave his sword around, making _swoosh_ sound effects as it glowed silver in the deepening dusk. But Clarke startled him and he ran to her, grinning. It was clear that they knew each other, although Abby hadn’t the faintest idea where from. She hadn’t mentioned him before.

“Hi, Clarke!” he said with an unsuccessful attempt to keep his excitement under control. “Princess.”

She grinned. “I’m a princess today, Bellamy. You better do what I say.”

His tiny chest puffed in a show of bravado that made Abby smile. “I’m an emperor,” he said. “You’d better do what I say. And my kingdom requires Milky Ways!”

“Bellamy,” Marcus warned him with a gentle hand on the linen of his toga. “That’s enough. You owe Mrs. Griffin an apology, too. No more chasing your sister or your friends for Milky Ways. Okay? Otherwise, when we get home Octavia gets them all. Every last one.”

Bellamy stared at him with the horror only apparent when faced with losing one’s favorite candy. “Okay,” he said quietly, an emperor defeated. “Okay, I won’t chase her anymore. I promise. Please don’t take my Milky Ways.”

“Good,” Marcus said, the matter resolved. Abby felt a tug on her jacket sleeve and looked down to see Clarke staring up at her with pleading eyes.

“Mommy, can I trick-or-treat with Bellamy and Octavia? Please? We did this together last year, too.”

Had they done this together last year? It would explain a lot – Clarke’s recognition of Bellamy, for one thing – and come to think of it, she thought Jake had mentioned a family of two kids who got along well with Clarke. Was she remembering it wrong, or were they not from Arkadia?

She glanced in Marcus’s direction with eyebrows raised, uncertain how he’d respond.

“Are you okay with teaming up?” she asked. “Clarke said you guys did this together last year.”

He nodded. “We did,” he confirmed. “You’re not wearing a werewolf costume, though. Unlike your husband.”

“Next year,” she muttered over a pang in her heart. If the Kanes weren’t from Arkadia – and she suspected they weren’t - maybe they didn’t know. It was probable, in fact, that they didn’t know. She couldn’t blame Marcus for bringing it up. “I’ll start looking for that costume now.”

 

***

 

 **How’s it going? You doing okay?** Abby’s phone buzzed, and she pulled it partially out of her pocket to find a text from Callie. She knew tonight was going to be difficult on multiple levels, and Abby wasn’t surprised to find her checking in.

 **Doing just fine,** she responded, making use of the “thumbs up” emoji in an attempt to make her point seem all the more convincing. **Clarke met up with some friends. She’s happy.**

A few seconds later, her phone buzzed again. **There was a second question, Abby.**

She sighed deeply, shoved her phone back in her pocket without responding. There was a second question, sure. She just didn’t feel like answering it.

Count Kane materialized at her side, his dark brown eyes betraying concern.

“Everything all right, Mrs. Griffin?” he asked, clearly wondering if she’d gotten a concussion earlier and neglected to tell him.

“Call me Abby,” she insisted, watching Octavia reach for the doorbell on a house three times the size of theirs. Bellamy gave her a boost and she reached it, cheering as a smiling woman with a gigantic orange bowl of candy appeared on the opposite side of the door. “It was just a frustrating text from a friend.”

“Ah,” Marcus said. They stood in awkward silence for a few moments, neither certain of how best to start up a conversation. She got the feeling that Jake would have known what to do – Jake was better with people than she had ever been. Finally, after an indiscernible amount of time spent counting cracks in the sidewalk, Abby figured out what to say.

“So, how long has this been going on?” she asked. “You guys meeting up for Halloween, I mean?”

“The past few years,” Marcus answered. “I think it’s become something of a tradition.”

The kids rejoined them and they moved along to the next house, the parents trailing behind as the kids ran at a full-on sprint. Abby wondered why Jake hadn’t told her about Kane and his kids – was it just because the only time they saw each other was on Halloween? Did he think it wasn’t worth mentioning? Or was he so focused on Clarke that the others didn’t matter? Probably the last one.

“Well, I’m honored to take part in it,” Abby said, aiming a smile his way. He smiled back, his “fangs” glinting in the sunset as his eyes appeared nearly black with the growing absence of light. It was only because she’d seen him earlier that she knew they were dark brown.

“I meant to ask,” he said, “what brought you out this year? I’m just curious – every other time we’ve done this, your husband’s been the one taking Clarke.”

Abby’s pace faltered for a moment as they walked, and she looked across the street at the hordes of trick-or-treaters in a feeble attempt to distance her mind from the words she was about to say, about to have to say because there was really no good way around them.

“Jake passed away,” Abby said, monotone. “Late last year.”

Marcus stopped walking, looked at her directly. “Abby, I’m so sorry,” he said. His gaze was soft and empathetic, and she could tell he genuinely regretted bringing it up. “We’re from Polis, and I really didn’t-“

“I figured,” Abby said, reaching forward to touch his arm. He looked so guilt-ridden at broaching the subject that she felt she needed to do something to placate him, and she had the sneaking suspicion words wouldn’t be enough. “It’s been long enough now that I don’t…it’s getting easier to talk about it.”

He glanced down at her hand on his upper arm, stared at her with something regretful and, perhaps, flustered.

“You don’t have to apologize,” she said softly, and Marcus gave her a nod of understanding.

She removed her hand and started walking again, watched as Octavia engaged in a playful swordfight with Clarke – Styrofoam sword against plastic wand. Their giggles wafted across the expanse of sidewalk, and despite the growing cold Abby felt her heart warming. Polis was a half-hour away, but these kids might need to see each other more often.

“So, how did they come up with those costumes?” Abby asked, desperate to change the subject. In her experience, a Halloween costume wasn’t just a costume – it meant something to the kid. A favorite character, favorite movie, something.

“Well, Bellamy loves history,” Marcus said. “He told as soon as we got home last year that he wanted to be Julius Caesar next year. So that was no surprise.”

“And Octavia?”

“Octavia loves superheroes, and it was between Batgirl and Wonder Woman. She chose Batgirl this year, but I’m expecting next year to be Wonder Woman’s year. She won’t forget that easily. If she could’ve gone as both of them, she would have.”

“That would’ve made her…Batwoman? Wondergirl?”

“Shhhhhhh,” Marcus shushed her with a grin. “Don’t give her any ideas. God help me if she starts _inventing_ superheroes. I have no idea how to make costumes.”

Abby smiled, remembering Clarke’s struggle to choose between Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella. A different, but similar, dilemma.

“What about you? What made you decide to be-“ she gestured to his costume. “Dracula, I’m guessing?”

“Octavia wanted me to be Batman,” he said, and Abby laughed. For some reason, the mental image of the man walking along with her dressed as the comic book character was too absurd to not cause a reaction. Not that he wouldn’t look good in the suit, because she was sure he would and _where was that thought coming from?_ “Bellamy wanted me to be Poseidon-“

“You would have been _freezing_ ,” Abby interjected with a smirk. Maybe if they lived in California, Florida, Texas, that would’ve been a practical costume. But in Minnesota, Kane’s Poseidon would command a fleet of icicles and a frozen lake.

“And Poseidon is a Greek god. Bellamy really wanted me to be Neptune,” Marcus said. “But I wasn’t going to correct him. He’ll figure it out for himself, the more he reads about history. So I decided to compromise and pick my own costume. I already had all the Dracula stuff, so…”

“That makes sense,” Abby said, reminded of her own Halloween expense woes. If she’d had a costume, she might have worn it. But her hospital scrubs were necessary for work, and the other Halloween things she had were…well, not appropriate to be wearing to take her daughter trick-or-treating. Or outside the bedroom.

“Why do you guys come here to trick-or-treat if you’re from Polis?” she asked as they ushered the kids along, stood in the driveway as they ran to the next doorway. “There have to be places closer to home.”

“There are,” Marcus said. “But I don’t want to take them in the city. Traffic doesn’t stop for Halloween there. Not to mention the drunk kids, the pranks…”

Abby could imagine. Drivers were merciless on the Polis streets, and as much as she adored the gentle twinkling of the city lights she could see why a parent would avoid taking their kid out on Halloween there.

“And after the first year, Bellamy and Octavia started begging me to come back here to see Clarke again,” he said, his breath coming out in misty wisps from between his fanged lips. “I think they wish they could see her for more than one night.”

Abby turned to him, regarded him in the dimming light. “Well, I think we could make that happen. Don’t you?”

“I don’t see why not,” he said. “Your husband and I exchanged numbers once, but nothing ever happened. Now as the kids are getting older, they keep mentioning Clarke. I think they understand this isn’t some magical place that only exists one night every year.”

She blamed her escalating heartbeat on happiness for Clarke instead of his smile, on relief that her daughter could spend time with friends instead of swooning like a teenager over the way he somehow made a stand-up Dracula collar look attractive.

“I think Jake probably gave you his cell,” Abby volunteered, smiling as her daughter offered her a Twix bar. “I can give you mine.”

“Sounds like a good idea,” he said as the kids returned. There was something in his voice that she couldn’t quite read, but she played it off as tiredness. They’d been out here for over two hours, after all.

“Mommy! That lady had full-size candy bars!”

The doctor in her wanted to scream. The mother in her wanted to cry with happiness.

“I got a Milky Way,” Bellamy announced proudly, ever the emperor, pleased with his loot as he crammed his laurel wreath onto his head with fervor. He gave his sister a sidelong glare. “Nobody better take it from me.”

“I’m not gonna take it,” Octavia insisted. “I got one, too.”

“Let’s get going, then,” Marcus said, ushering the siblings along with hands on the tops of their shoulders. “We only have about ten more minutes, okay? It’s getting pretty dark out.”

Abby glanced down at her wrist, realized she’d forgotten to put on her watch. She pulled her phone out of her pocket, pressed the center button and… _no way._

They’d been out here for two hours that felt like ten minutes.

But there was something easy about talking to Marcus, laughing with him, exchanging various bits of Halloween trivia and offering each other pieces of their favorite candy from their kids’ loot (Marcus loved Butterfingers, too). Spending time with him didn’t feel forced, not like those dates Callie had tried to set her up on with men who were too stiff, too businesslike, too rigid and too emotionless. They were silent to Jake’s symphony, black-and-white to Jake’s Technicolor.

But Marcus…she glanced at him as he held Octavia’s hand, her other claimed by Bellamy as they crossed the street.

Marcus might have a song. Marcus might have some color in him.

A casual glance at his left hand earlier – that hadn’t been intentional, he’d been giving her back her phone and she just managed to see – told her he wasn’t married. She wondered if he’d been through the same hellacious experience she’d endured, if he understood what she was going through. If perhaps they shared that experience. But now, with the kids laughing and a smile coming easier to her lips than it had for the better part of the year, wasn’t the time to ask.

The kids moved on to the next house, and Abby stood by Marcus’ side.

“Okay, I can give you my number now,” she said, hoping she didn’t sound desperate. This was for the kids, she reminded herself. So he could contact her to set up something for the kids. This was for the kids, and _just_ for the kids.

“Go ahead,” Marcus responded, pulling out his phone and pressing the screen a few times. “Whenever you’re ready.”

“414-“

Then Clarke screamed, and the whole world stopped turning.

Marcus and Abby met her halfway to the house, her heart breaking when she glimpsed tears streaming down her daughter’s face.

“Clarke? Honey, what’s wrong?”

“My-my tiara’s gone,” Clarke sobbed, covering her eyes with her tiny hands. “It’s gone and I forgot about it and now somebody probably took it and I’ll never see it again and I bet daddy’s really sad.”

 _I bet daddy’s really sad._ No, he wouldn’t be. There was no way in hell Jake would ever be upset with her for losing a $20 tiara. Abby felt a decent amount of anger, but not at her daughter: she was more angry at herself for not noticing. Maybe if she hadn’t let herself get so stupidly caught up in Marcus Kane, they would’ve noticed the tiara’s absence earlier.

“Hey,” Abby said, kneeling down on the freezing concrete to get to her daughter’s eye level, shoving down her own regrets. “Daddy wouldn’t be upset with you. He would know you didn’t mean to lose it. Okay?”

Clarke sniffled, moved her hands away from her face so Abby could hold both of them in her own. She was already shivering – the temperature had dropped significantly since they’d first ventured out – and Abby knew if she stayed out here much longer in her thin princess dress the night would only end with a cold and more tears.

“We’ll find it, Clarke,” Bellamy reassured her. “I’m an emperor. One of my subjects will have it.”

“And I’m Batgirl. If I see anyone with it, I’ll punch them,” Octavia contributed, nodding as though this was a logical segway from her brother’s suggestion.

“No, Octavia, you _won’t_ ,” Marcus said, a resignation in his tone that made Abby wonder if this was a conversation he’d had with her before. “Fighting doesn’t solve the problem.”

“But daaaaaad-“

“No punching.”

“Fine,” she sulked, her mask slipping down her face.

For a moment they all stood in silence, Abby holding Clarke’s hands, thinking about what to do next. It was getting late, and keeping the kids out past 10:30 on a school night wasn’t a stellar idea. Not to mention the drive Marcus and his kids would have to get home – at least Abby was a block from her house.

“Princess Clarke,” Marcus said, his voice soft.

“I’m not a princess,” Clarke mumbled. “I don’t have my tiara. I can’t be a princess without my tiara.”

“I disagree,” Marcus insisted. “You don’t need a tiara to be a princess. But according to an old book of fairy tales I found, you do need to be pure of heart and kind in manner, which I can tell you are. As long as you’re both of those things, you’ll always be a princess.”

“What book of fairy tales?” Octavia asked. “I never heard you-“

“Shhhhhhh,” Bellamy shushed her.

Clarke gradually stopped sniffling, glanced up at Marcus with something like awe, and before Abby could stop her she wriggled out of her mother’s grip and enclosed him in a tight hug.

“Thank you, Mr. Kane,” she said, her tiny voice steady. All Abby’s worries about the impulsive gesture were wiped away as soon as she glimpsed Marcus’ face: he was smiling, happy.

Clarke stepped away after a decent amount of time, and the group decided to band together to retrace their steps.

“It has to be around here somewhere,” Marcus insisted. “We just have to keep walking until we find it. No one’s going to take your crown, Clarke.”

Abby wasn’t so certain, but kept her doubts to herself. That wasn’t something her daughter needed to hear. So instead she joined in, offered support as her brain mutinied against the optimistic atmosphere.

“Right,” she said, praying her tone sounded cheerful and not skeptical as she felt. “We just have to find it.”

They spent an hour searching and came no closer to finding the missing tiara. Clarke was exhausted and had all but collapsed into her mother’s arms, Octavia had taken to landing punches on Bellamy whenever she saw fit (“I’m Batgirl! I’m here to save the city of Gotham!”) and Bellamy had consumed enough candy to fill one of the giant Costco bags Abby had purchased earlier in the month. Everyone was tired, everyone was weary, and no one caught so much as a glimpse of the missing crown.

Eventually they ended up in front of the Griffin’s house, with full bags of candy and heavy hearts.

“Clarke?” Bellamy said, shaking her gently as her eyes closed. She was, quite literally, falling asleep on her feet. “Clarke, are you awake?”

The little girl mumbled something incoherent, and Abby decided it was time for her to step in. She swooped down and picked her daughter up in her arms, laid her so her head rested on her shoulder.

“I’m going to get her to bed,” Abby said, speaking more to Marcus than either of his kids. Clarke curled closer into her mother’s warmth with a contented sigh, and Abby wondered if she was already asleep. Could she have nodded off that quickly? For God’s sake, she’d at least need to take a bath before she went to bed.

“Seems like that’s the best idea at this point,” Marcus said. He appeared crestfallen, genuinely regretful, and Abby wished she could reach out and touch him again. Let him know that she didn’t blame him for not being able to search for longer. “And we still have a long drive ahead of us, unfortunately.”

“I know,” Abby said. “It’s nothing to worry about. We’ll either find it tomorrow, or-“ she paused, looked down to make sure her daughter really was asleep – “she’ll get over it. Her dad bought it for her, but it’s not the only thing she has of his. It’ll be okay.”

“I can come back tomorrow and help you look,” Marcus offered, but Abby shook her head.

“Really, Marcus,” she insisted. “It’s okay. You don’t have to drive all the way back here for that. I have the day off tomorrow, so I’ll look around then.”

Marcus sighed, a noise of resignation rather than exasperation. “If you insist,” he said. And since his hands weren’t stuck on a nine-year-old sleeping beauty he was able to reach out and touch her hand, a brief contact of skin on skin that made her heart flutter.

Their gazes connected, and for the tiniest of moments she considered asking him to come back tomorrow and help her look. Clarke would be gone for most of the day, so even if they didn’t find anything it wouldn’t cause an uproar. And the idea of spending time with him was admittedly alluring…

“I’M BATGIRL! PROTECTOR OF GOTHAM CITY!”

“DAD, OCTAVIA STOLE MY LAST MILKY WAY AND SHE WON’T GIVE IT BACK!”

And as quickly as the touch had been initiated, it ended.

“I’ll see you around, then?” he said as he walked away, in a sudden rush to reach his dueling children.

“Absolutely,” Abby affirmed. “You know where I live now, I guess.”

He smirked. “Don’t worry, Mrs. Griffin. You haven’t picked up a stalker.”

She laughed, quietly enough that she wouldn’t wake her daughter. “Good to know.”

Bellamy had materialized and begun dragging his father toward the street, toward his sister. And Marcus had to go, and Abby had to get on with her life. Whatever fairy tale tonight had been a part of might be destined to remain just that: a fairy tale.

 

***

 

Midnight arrived along with a healthy dose of insomnia, and Abby Griffin found herself on the couch in the living room with a glass of wine in one hand and the remote control in the other. She wasn’t big on horror movies and certainly wouldn’t want Clarke to accidentally wake up to the sounds of The Exorcist, but as she channel-surfed she found that was all that was on. Defeated, she put her feet up on the hassock and took a sip of tart merlot.

She’d forgotten to ask him for his number, and the closest she’d gotten to giving him hers had been “414.” Talk about a glass slipper, she thought bitterly. If the area code fits…

Well, there was always the internet. Although she was fairly confident Jake had removed their listing from WhitePages – he wasn’t comfortable with their address and phone number being out on the internet, which Abby thought was a smart move. Until now. Until Jake was gone and she was drinking merlot on Halloween night without him and thinking about a man who wasn’t him, could never be him, but made her forget he wasn’t here. If only for a little while.

Determined, she decided to hope Google would be her friend. She sat down at the desk in the corner of the room, woke up her laptop, and typed “Marcus Caine Polis” into the search bar. Nothing.

“Marcus Kaine Polis.”

Nothing.

“Marcus Cane Polis.”

A law firm. Decidedly not his.

She was about to try one more spelling – “Kane” instead of whatever else she’d been trying – when the doorbell rang. Her gaze drifted to the top right corner of the screen: it was almost one in the morning. Who the hell rang her doorbell at this time of night? Probably some stupid teenagers playing ding-dong-ditch, she thought. Not worth getting up to answer.

_Ding-dong!_

Abby groaned, relinquishing her grip on her wine glass to stumble toward the door. She’d long ago ditched her jeans and sweater for a pair of flannel pajama pants and a loose-fitting white shirt, washed away all her makeup and tied her hair into a messy bun at the top of her head. Whoever this was would be getting a real treat, she thought as she unlocked the door and yanked it open.

“ _Marcus_?”

Standing there on her doorstep, smiling sheepishly with a silver tiara in his hand, was the Marcus Kane the Google search bar couldn’t find for her. His cheeks were flushed from the cold, his fingers reddened, and she couldn’t help wondering how long he’d been out there. His Dracula costume and fangs had disappeared, replaced by a gray coat and a pair of jeans, and she guessed he must have gone home and come back to continue the search.

“I, um, found Clarke’s crown,” he said to the air above her head, shyer now than he had been all night. “It fell off in someone’s front yard. We couldn’t find it because it was in the grass.”

“Of course it was,” Abby muttered, cursing herself for her ineptitude. Of course it fell off in the grass, the one place she hadn’t checked. “Come in, Marcus. You don’t have to stand out there in the cold.”

His eyes widened a fraction, as if he was surprised at her offer. As if being invited into her home was the last thing he expected, which to be fair, at one in the morning it probably was. But he stepped inside and she closed the door, thankful for the warm air drifting to them from the furnace.

“I saw how upset she was,” Marcus said, handing her the crown. She promptly placed it on the entryway table: it was scuffed a bit and dulled by topsoil, but that was nothing she couldn’t fix. “I just couldn’t let her-“

Abby threw her arms around him before he could finish his sentence.

He had a woodsy, fresh scent – the kind of thing she thought she’d only smell after rainstorms, when the first rays of light shone through the dark clouds. She couldn’t resist breathing him in as she held him, pressing him close in a short, but tight, embrace.

“Thank you,” she whispered, feeling his pulse quicken as she spoke. Just because it was so unexpected, she told herself. He wouldn’t have thought she’d practically tackle him in a hug. There was no other reason she’d affect him this way, especially not when she was dressed like this.

“It was no problem.”

She leaned away after a few moments, wondering what the natural progression of these things was. Should she offer him a drink? Ask him to sit down? What was the protocol for courtesy when a man showed up at your house at one in the morning with your daughter’s missing tiara and looking like he’d sprung from the pages of a Brooks Brothers catalog?

She blurted it out before she could think better of it.

“You know, I never gave you my number.”

_Smooth, Abby. Very subtle. As subtle as a brick to the head._

He gave a quiet laugh, apparently just as nervous as she was. “I realized that as soon as we got on the freeway. I was coming back to look anyway, but…um…I’m happy now we can-“

“Me too,” she finished for him as they both shifted awkwardly under the yellow lamplight. He pulled out his phone and looked at her expectantly. “Anyway, it’s 414-370-9390.”

He finished typing and smiled, depositing his phone back in his jacket pocket.

“I was wondering, since you said you have the day off tomorrow…” he started asking, trailed off just as Abby’s pulse began to race.

“Yes?” she asked, encouraging him.

“Do you want to go get coffee? I know of a few really good places in Polis. Or if you don’t like coffee that’s fine, we could think of something else to do-“

Abby grinned, the image of Callie cheering resurfacing in her head. _Finally, Abby. Didn’t I tell you you’d find someone when you were ready? If you got your head out of your ass?_

“Coffee sounds wonderful,” Abby said. When was the last time she’d smiled like this, other than earlier tonight? Could she even remember it? “I love coffee.”

“Okay, great,” Marcus said, appearing visibly relieved that he hadn’t inadvertently suggested something repulsive or been turned down. “I’ll text you to set up the details. Because I have your number now.”

The sound that escaped her lips came dangerously close to a giggle. “Yeah. We got it right the second time around.”

“We did indeed,” he agreed. “Although I should probably get going. If Bellamy or Octavia wake up and I’m not there, I’ll be in _big trouble_.”

Abby could only imagine.

“You should probably get going, then.”

“I should.”

They stared at each other for a few heartbeats more, then Abby leaned in and pressed her lips to his cheek. His beard was rough but not scratchy, his skin soft and warm, and she felt a little lightheaded when she leaned away.

“Good night, Marcus,” she said, resting her hands on his shoulders. “Happy Halloween.”

The blush in his cheeks was enough to make her go hot and cold all over.

“Good night, Abby,” he said. “Happy Halloween to you, too.”


End file.
